C: International Contemporary Art articles from July 1996

C: International Contemporary Art archives from July 1996

Here comes the sun!
July 1, 1996... Summer has finally arrived and with it, an issue of C that could be a model for the ideal summer vacation. All the elements are here: travel to far-off lands, where we contemplate the range and aesthetic wonder of the artworks set before us;...

Do not go gently: some thoughts on art and illness.
July 1, 1996... Given my fascination with the relationship between art and death, I was perplexed when a recent exhibition by the late British photographer Jo Spence left me deeply ambivalent, questioning the relationship between illness, self-expression and...

Back to the future: revisiting technology at the Sydney Biennale.
July 1, 1996... Your title for the exhibition, "Jurassic Technologies Revenant," would be a good place to start. What are you referring to? With the title I hope to suggest reconsideration of certain older reproductive media. In the exhibition, I will...

Summer reading 96: ... our fifth annual survey of who is reading what in the art-world ...
July 1, 1996... Karen Love is Director/Curator of Presentation House Gallery. Her most recent projects include "Death and the Family," a group show with ten Canadian and American artists; "World Tea Party," a complex interactive tea salon environment based on...

Amazing space: Donald Judd's works in Marfa, Texas.
July 1, 1996... I had known about Judd's work in Marfa for some time. Several years ago, I'd seen a magazine article with photographs of his library and studio. The light filtering down from the clerestory windows, the long unpainted wood shelves set within...

Ontario in brief, summer 1996.
July 1, 1996... Several ghosts were visible in southern Ontario this past season. The ghost of Andy Warhol was seen in Toronto on at least two occasions: inhabiting the body of Jared Harris in MARY HARRON's much-discussed new film about his assailant, radical...

Peter Legris (exhibition).
July 1, 1996... Each of the ten paintings in Peter Legris's exhibition is based on one of three photographs taken by the artist of parking lots and turn-of-the-century warehouse buildings along Toronto's King Street. The chiaroscuro daylight and occasional...

Anette Larsson (exhibition).
July 1, 1996... In two installations, Anette Larsson makes use of the found object and touches on issues related to cinema/video production and viewership. In Speaker, Larsson employs eleven drive-in movie speakers delivering sound effects (lapping water, the...

Effet cinema (exhibition).
July 1, 1996... As part of cinema's 1995 centennial commemoration, curator Real Lussier brought together many disparate works from across the spectrum of contemporary art over the last two decades under the theme of the "cinema effect." Through his sociology...

Montreal in brief, summer 96.
July 1, 1996... It's worth noting that, lately, several artist-run centres felt a necessity for examining the history and ideologies of the so-called "parallel" system. With invited guests such as PEGGY GALE, DIANA NEMIROFF, CLIVE ROBERTSON and SYLVIE FORTIN,...

Stephen Horne (exhibition).
July 1, 1996... My experience of Stephen Horne's exhibition "fissures" began with its invitation: a photograph of a Pan American jet being reconstructed after a fatal crash. It shows a large fragment of the aircraft's fuselage with a few remaining windows and...

Reva Stone (exhibition).
July 1, 1996... To the extent that the computer facilitates our quest for knowledge in such areas as medicine, science and engineering, it is a tool like any other. But its complexity engenders a passivity (if not outright dependence) on the part of the user...

Western Canada in brief, summer 1996.
July 1, 1996... Always making a substantial contribution to overall arts activity, electronic and photobased art is particularly ubiquitous and diverse this season. In Calgary, THE NEW GALLERY's "Technology as Art II" featured a video installation about the...

Plane speak (exhibition): contemporary abstraction in Illinois.
July 1, 1996... With varying degrees of heft and depth, much of the work included in "Plane Speak" historicized the annals of abstraction, a condition which, at times, was more diminishing than liberating. Instead of functioning as a focal point, abstraction...

Chicago in brief, summer 1996.
July 1, 1996... Once again, an early, temperate spring remained a Platonic ideal for most Chicagoans. Thus, for the art community, the emergence of AUTOMATIC (1087 N. Hermitage), a new gallery on the scene was particularly welcome; strong exhibitions by...

Michael Schmidt (exhibition).
July 1, 1996... August Sander once said of his chosen medium: "Nothing seems better suited than photography to give an absolute faithful historical picture of our time... There is nothing I hate more than sugar-glazed photographs with gimmicks, poses, and...

New York in brief, summer 1996.
July 1, 1996... New York is now adrift in abstract art, and while much of that is bemoaned as a conservative adjustment to bad market conditions, examples of competent work still abound. Exhibiting such competency, the sculptor MEG WEBSTER showed her drawings...

Stephen Clayton Ellwood (exhibition).
July 1, 1996... At the opening of Stephen Ellwood's exhibition at Anna Leonowens Gallery (where I work), I cannot see the floor. It is obscured from wall to wall by a field of inflated, white party balloons. I tentatively wade into the space; the balloons...

Nicholas Hooper (exhibition).
July 1, 1996... At the opening of Stephen Ellwood's exhibition at Anna Leonowens Gallery (where I work), I cannot see the floor. It is obscured from wall to wall by a field of inflated, white party balloons. I tentatively wade into the space; the balloons...

Atlantic Canada in brief, summer 1996.
July 1, 1996... The suntan season is usually a slack period, but this summer promises to be a busy one for Atlantic galleries. New Brunswick sculptor SHELLEY DOUGHERTY has been chewing the furniture for "A House Divided," at Fredericton's GALLERY CONNEXION...